


Dead Hearts

by geographer



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Abuse, Jealousy, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geographer/pseuds/geographer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard is attempting to make a new life for himself in San Francisco when he receives the call from Priscilla telling him that Francis has attempted suicide for the second time. At a loss, she begs Richard to take her husband in. Problem one: Richard has never quite gotten over that kiss in his dorm room, and neither has Francis. Problem two: Richard is already caught up in an abusive relationship with another man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally got this posted! Between working extra hours for the summer and taking on an internship, the writer's block has been real. Future chapters will definitely be longer, but I just wanted to get the story off to a good, hopefully intriguing start. Details of Richard's life leading up to his reunion with Francis will be built up as everything goes along. Enjoy!

This heat is oppressive, Richard thinks, like an empire at its peak and with all the ruthlessness to match. Of course, his choice of clothing certainly does him no favors, either. A suit jacket isn’t compatible with inland California like it would be with the San Francisco waterfront or the windswept Cook Strait.

  
“Peggy,” he says, “It’s hot. I left water bottles in the car. We should go back, don’t you think?”

  
He’s taken meager refuge in the shade of an old tree in the heart of the cemetery, beside his father’s grave and the hunched figure of his mother in her sun hat, kneeling in the freshly cut grass. She picks her head up and looks at him with green eyes echoing his own. She sighs. The lines on her face are more pronounced now than they ever were.

  
“When did you start calling me Peggy, like you aren’t my son?” she asks. “He was your father, you know. You could be down here with me showing him a bit of respect. You aren’t as fancy as you think.”

  
A blessed hint of a breeze passes just then, and Richard feels a hint of guilt at the fact that his mother’s words don’t even get the chance to sink in. His thoughts are in a dozen other places than the bed where his father’s heart gave out in his sleep. They linger in memories of beatings, of harsh words and slow lessons in unwinding love. The truth is that Richard stopped caring what happened to his father a long time ago.

  
“That isn’t it,” Richard sighs instead, “I have things to do, that’s all. I’m waiting for something in the mail. I’d like to see if it’s come already. I gave them your address.”

  
“Your transcripts,” she says. “I don’t see why you had to go all the way to New Zealand for a year. I didn’t even know where it was until you flew off.”

 

She'd hated his leaving even more than his smoking habit, and it certainly wasn't because she missed him. No, there was newfound resentment there. Or was it? Richard never could quite tell.

  
\-----------------------

  
There had been a phone call earlier that morning: two rings, but a dead line when Richard held up the receiver to his ear and let a tuft of soft brown hair brush against the plastic. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but a sense of dread is building in his stomach as he drives home from the cemetery with his mother in the passenger seat. Her nails tap against the door handle, the Oldies station on the radio bringing a rare smile to her lips. All the same, Richard hears the ringing in the back of his mind like an ill omen. Two rings. Loud: echoing down his parents’ hallway. He used to roll his toy fire truck down the wooden floor there when he was eight. It’s an old ring, vintage and bone-jarring, enough to wake someone up out of a dead sleep. It was like the bell attached to the Wellington cable car, on an island very far away that he had no reason to venture all the way back to now, his Masters completed and visa expired. He’d wanted to get away. Now he was trapped in Plano again with his mother and her mouthy friends. A blonde by the name of Patricia had interrogated him for hours upon his arrival, combing him over with compliments about how handsome he supposedly was. He’d tried his best not to roll his eyes.

  
His amusement had faded entirely the moment she asked, “You went to that college in Vermont, didn’t you? I remember hearing about that murder that happened there. Were you a student at the time?”

  
Richard tasted blood in his mouth when he replied, “Which murder?”

  
There was the old man, and then there was Bunny. Of course she meant Bunny.

New Zealand had been as far removed from Vermont as he could possibly imagine, and that, in part, was why he stayed as long as he did. It very rarely snowed on the North Island, and never the way it did in the Northeast. There was no trudging through piles of white. No sounds of snow plows in the dark before dawn. No dreams of cold corpses and cliffs and sensations of falling that he couldn't shake. There was only the bush. Little birds with fan tails and the biggest pigeons Richard had ever seen in his life, with lovely, iridescent feathers. He wanted to become a professor, and there he could set his mind to task. But that had ended with his degree, and now he was at Berkeley to work toward his PhD. The West Coast is far enough removed from the nightmare, he thinks. From the wealth of mistakes and the people who dragged him into the dark. 

  
He barely notices when they pull into the driveway in their old sedan.

  
“You get tunnel vision when you drive, you know,” his mother clucks teasingly, her mood bettered, “Don’t run through any red lights, Richard.”

  
She exits the car first, and Richard watches her walk up to the front door in her white dress. She’s still a pretty woman. She could easily find someone new, someone better, he knows. Someone who isn’t his father. Someone who wouldn’t hit her. Hit _them_.

He shakes the thoughts from his mind, clearing his throat before turning the key and finding his way to the mailbox only to find it empty. His heart is still pounding, and he wipes the sweat from his forehead. He doesn’t need this. Can’t have this. It’s been much too long. The Greek textbooks on the shelf in his San Francisco apartment have collected dust.

  
“Richard!” his mother’s voice jolts him out of his thoughts. “The phone! It’s for you. Some girl named Priscilla. Is she your girlfriend? It’d be nice if you finally found someone after Sophie-“

  
Girls. That was a bad line of thought.

  
“I’ll be right there!” he calls back. True to his word, he slams the mailbox closed, confused as to how he hadn’t heard the phone ring even from just outside the house. He’d been distracted. He still is, not quite recalling the name until he’s already passed over the threshold and is cradling the phone delicately against his fair cheek. His expression drops.

  
“Priscilla,” he greets, voice still. “It’s Richard. Why are you calling me? No matter what’s going on, I hardly think I’m the one to help you-“

  
“He’s been asking for you! What was I supposed to tell him?” Priscilla demands, her voice as prissy and clipped as Richard remembers. “I had to at least call. He would be able to tell if I didn’t, and then he would whine or insult me again.”

  
“How did you even get this number? Christ, I haven’t seen you in-“

  
“Years. I know, _Doctor_ Papen,” she huffs. "I looked you up on the Berkeley site. Your contact information listed this number."

  
Richard groans, irked that the woman will hardly let him finish his sentences. He'd given his mother's number because he'd been living with her since he'd heard of his father's death.

  
“I don’t have a doctorate yet. You know how much he loves to talk, or at least that’s how I remember him,” Richard tells her stifle. He picks a piece of dust off of his jacket sleeve absently. He lowers his voice when he hears his mother rummaging in the kitchen.

  
“What’s happened? Are you two finally getting a divorce?”

  
There’s an intake of breath on the opposite end of the line, no doubt a pause for Priscilla to straighten her skirt and brush her hair out of her eyes so that she can fix Richard with a response.

  
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “I tried to call you earlier, you know. You didn’t pick up. How old is your line? I’m not even sure if it went through.”

  
The call from before the cemetery. Of course. It all made sense now.

  
“It’s old. Tell me what’s happened,” Richard insists.

  
Priscilla pauses.

  
“He’s done it again,” she breathes. “Or at least we think so. There was a gun in his hand. He was just sitting there with it on the end of the bed. He scared the daylights out of me. He’s in the hospital now. They have him on a watch. I don’t know what he’ll do once he’s out, and he’s asked to speak with you. I don’t know why. Now please, will you come to Boston?”

  
Richard blinks. He hasn’t spoken to Francis in years, though they’d exchanged letters up until more recently. The last he’d recalled, Francis had been seeing some man behind his family’s back, though with a mindset so fragile he could barely leave his apartment. The knowledge of that always troubled Richard. Francis, caged like a pretty tropical bird by his own hand.  
He doesn’t quite know what to say: his tongue is frozen, body still rigid in the suit jacket that Francis himself had gifted him along with so many others. And there it is. His name. Francis Abernathy. He couldn’t escape it anymore.

  
“Richard?” Priscilla presses.

  
A dormitory room. Drunk lips pressed against his own. 

 

"I can't. I have to look after my mother, Priscilla. I'm sorry. Couldn't you call someone else?" he sighs.

 

"And who would that be? Camilla? She's a witch," Priscilla practically whines. "She hardly talks, and when she does, it's never helpful. I saw her a few months ago, anyway. She looks like death itself. Hardly the person to do the job of talking Francis away from the ledge."

 

That news wounds Richard in a place he'd thought he'd forgotten, but he shakes his head, taking a stabilizing breath.

 

"Then there remains the small matter of paying for this flight to Boston. I don't have much money, Priscilla. I spent it this past year, traveling. I certainly can't ask my mother for a loan."

 

"You don't need to," the blonde insists. "Francis will pay himself. Don't worry about that. All that matters is that you're here. Now: please? I won't beg again, Richard. Just say yes."

 

His answer is troublingly automatic. He wants to hang up the phone.

  
“Fine. Yes. But I’ll need a ride from the airport.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if anyone is actually reading this, but thank you to those who are!

It's hardly another two days before Richard is standing by the window in his boyfriend's office at Berkeley, a cigarette being slipped between his lips and lit with surprising grace. Cliff's bluntness, lack of ostentation, had always been something characteristic of him. Perhaps this was a fluke.

"You have such a pretty mouth, Ricky," the older blond sighs, "But your lips are chapped. You're not used to all this sun, are you?"

"We can't all afford to stay inside and read all day," Richard returns carefully, not meaning to mock. "But you're not reading. You're studying."

"That's right, but don't sidestep my compliment." Cliff chuckles. He flashes a charming smile, the underdeveloped wrinkles that will one day become laugh lines on full display. He's of a height with Richard, but broader in the shoulders and older by half a decade. His dark eyes rake him over curiously.

"I didn't mean to. I just don't think that they're all that pretty," Richard demurs.

"Oh?" Cliff laughs, plucking the lit cigarette from Richard's mouth and guiding him up against his desk through a cloud of smoke. Richard sits, a bit jarred from the unexpected move. "Well, you're wrong. They're very pretty. Pink and plump."

"Cliff! I didn't come here to be complimented on your desk," Richard insists anxiously. "I have a favor to ask. After all, you're going to be a Psychiatrist, so you of all people should understand."

Cliff raises a fair eyebrow.

"I thought that we already talked you through it, Ricky," he mutters. "Are you struggling again? I won't have you walking wounded again. Is it the nightmares again? Are you seeing things? People? You told me about that one fellow, the one you saw-"

"At the cemetery, yes," Richard finishes, retrieving his cigarette and taking a much-needed puff. He blows a wisp of hair from his mossy eyes. "I didn't tell my mother. She wouldn't have understood. She'd have sent me to some program."

"Oh, Ricky," Cliff groans exhaustedly, stretching out and rolling up the sleeves on his button-up. "You're a fool. You should have told me sooner, if you needed to talk. But that's how you are. Fucking stubborn. Always trying to prove yourself."

"This isn't quite about me," Richard interrupts. "I don't need therapy again. I simply need money. Enough for airfare to Boston and back, that's all. You fly there all the time for your conferences. I assumed that you might be able to help. I've already promised a friend that I would meet her there. She needs me."

"She?" Cliff snorts. "I don't recall you having any lady friends in Boston, Ricky, but I'll pay the money. How long will you be away, precisely? And why would my profession be at all useful in this?

"She's tried to kill herself, that's why," Richard says matter-of-factly. This blasé attitude doesn't reach his eyes. "She's tried to kill herself, and she's asked for me specifically. I've known her since Hampden, Cliff, I can't just tell her I've changed my mind. I've already promised I'd go. I doubt that I'll be longer than a few days. A week at most."

He wants to tell Cliff the truth, really. But he can't.

"Then go, pretty thing. I won't stop you," Cliff shrugs. He gives Richard a wink. "Just make sure you tell your mother. Call her, too. Let me have a puff of that."

He takes the cigarette back yet again, but doesn't bring it to his lips. Instead, he presses his open mouth against Richard's own, drawing back after a delicate swipe of tongue between the brunet's lips.

"See?" he purrs, then murmurs around the shape of the cigarette, "Very pretty."

He smells of smoke and wine.

\-----------------

A day after that, and Richard is seated in first class with nothing but a piece of carry-on luggage beneath the seat in front of him and a suit jacket belonging to Francis Abernathy over his shoulders. The flight is blessedly short, and nothing at all like his first journey to the East coast. He keeps his eyes away from the window. So effectively, in fact, that he hardly realizes that they're about to land until the captain announces their descent and the fasten-seatbelt sign dings above his head.

On the street, Boston is unseasonably warm. The air is thick and heavy like the phantom kiss lingering on his lips. Vermont had never been so humid, save for one day in the summer, at the house they'd all shared. He and Francis had sat on the porch while Camilla stared at fat butterflies resting on hydrangea leaves. He shudders and hails a cab.

The ride to the hospital isn't a long one, and Richard spends most of his time staring out the window. Boston, to him, doesn't appear to be much to Francis' taste. Or at least not that of the Francis he once knew. It was old, but not in the way he liked. Austere, but overly so. Francis only enjoyed the show of severity.

Richard tips the driver, offering a weary smile before turning and entering the bustling building. An old man in a wheelchair is rolled out as he reaches the door, and he steps aside to allow him through. He stands awkwardly for what feels like a long time, searching the halls and nearby nurses' stations for Priscilla or a familiar head of red hair. For a moment he almost considers running back outside to catch the cab he's only just left. There's still time. He could break his promise, leave this place and that life far behind. But he's already come this far, and there's a delicate hand on his shoulder, beckoning him to turn around.

Richard's heart nearly stops when he lays eyes on Francis' foxish face.

"Franc-"

"I'm sorry that you had to come," Francis says, his voice as smooth as milk despite his harrowed features. He wears a pair of worn sweatpants and a t-shirt, plain white and so very unlike him that Richard can't help but swallow.

"You don't have to apologize. I was dying of boredom back home," Richard laughs softly.

"Surrounded by movie stars and attractive people? Don't lie to me, Richard. You've always been terrible at it," Francis actually manages to tease. The room feels quieter now, as though they aren't surrounded by over a dozen people milling about.

"I shouldn't have asked for you. It was a moment of weakness. You can go home if you like. I snuck out early. The Priss doesn't know that I'm here."

It takes very little time at all for Richard to realize who Francis is referring to.

"You talk about your wife like that?"

"She's more like my jailer," Francis smirks, though the expression doesn't quite reach his eyes. "And we never actually married."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere now," Richard insists. "I came a long way. And she told me that-"

He sighs, lowering his voice. He takes Francis' hand in his own, removing it from his shoulder but not quite letting it go.

"You had a gun, Francis."

Francis yanks his hand away. Reluctantly.

"Of course I did. I can barely leave my own apartment, Richard," Francis scoffs. "What sort of life is that? I couldn't go through with it because of the things I've come to rely on, the things I'd miss. There are always more things to buy, you know. Scarves and fancy things."

"What about the man you were seeing?" Richard asks, the question sounding strange on his lips. "Wouldn't you miss him?"

"Who, Kim? God, no," Francis laughs. It's a bitter thing, and Richard bites down on his lip.

"He started to remind me of Charles, the way he was getting with his drinking," he goes on. "And then he told me he couldn't stand me anymore. He said that my moods were too much. It ended ages ago."

"A girl told me that once, too," Richard responds.

"Sophie, I imagine? She was too soft, anyway," Francis says. "But I am sorry."

"It doesn't matter anymore. Should you be away for so long? Won't anyone notice that you're missing?" Richard finally asks, looking around. Francis laughs, grabbing his chin and holding his head in place so that their eyes meet.

"I'm signed out. They could only hold me for three days," he explains. "By law, I'm utterly free. Priscilla doesn't know that I'm able to sign myself out. She's a bit of a ditz like that."

He grins, held high almost triumphantly in a manner reminiscent of the boy Richard knew at Hampden.

"But where are you going now?" Richard inquires, confused. "She'll be upset with you if you go home, you know. She strikes me as the shrieking type."

"Like a harpy, I know," Francis agrees. "But I'm not going home. In fact, I don't plan on going back there again. Not ever. I hope you understand. But you've come a long way, and probably just for me, isn't that right?"

A moment of quiet, and Richard nods, sighing.

"I remembered your letter from all those years ago," he admits. "And when I got the call from Priscilla, I felt the same as I did then. Panicked. I was worried. Please, don't laugh."

"I won't, Mr. Papen, don't worry about that," Francis replies. "It's harder for me to laugh these days. It just doesn't come as easily."

"Things have changed," Richard agrees, and knows that Francis could hardly comprehend the extent of how true this statement is. "But you didn't answer my question. If you won't go home, then where will you go?"

"With you, of course- oh, don't give me that look, Richard. I'm not going to follow you around like a puppy," Francis groans.

"I don't think I can bring you home to California with me," Richard confesses worriedly. "I had to borrow the money to fly here."

"Didn't I offer to pay your way? I know for a fact that I did," Francis mutters, narrowing his gaze as though wracking his memory.

"No. You did. But I couldn't accept."

"So you borrowed it from someone else? I'm hurt," Francis jokes. "Well. Whoever it was, I'll reimburse them instead. Eventually. But I hate this place, and it stinks, so I think we should leave."

"And go where?" Richard murmurs.

"Always so many questions with you," Francis drawls, blue eyes flashing. "Well, here's one of my own. Can you still read Greek as well as you used to, Richard?"


End file.
